wfn.org | Presbyterian Foundation introduces new trustees and elects chair to

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Note #6249 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

lead them
3-November-2000
00388

Presbyterian Foundation introduces new trustees and elects chair to lead
them

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The Presbyterian Church (USA) Foundation recently
welcomed seven new board members, elected a new chair to lead them and brain
stormed ideas for obtaining additional funds.

	The new trustees, elected last summer to three-year terms by the General
Assembly Council (GAC), gathered at the Foundation's fall board meeting here
Oct. 18-21 to be introduced to organizational procedures before beginning
their terms in January.

	"We invited them to this meeting to be introduced and to sit in on
committees and kind of figure out how the organization works," said Bob
Leech, the Foundation's president and CEO. "We had an orientation for the
new trustees ... to sit in and understand what we're doing."

          Ray Tanner of Jackson, Tenn., was elected the board's chair to
replace outgoing trustee Jim Henderson of Montreat, N.C., who has held the
post since January. Judy Stephens, a five-year trustee from Springfield,
Ill., was elected vice chair to replace Tanner.

	Since 1799, the Foundation has been serving the church and its mission
through the cultivation and management of gifts and endowments. In the past
five years, the Foundation, which manages assets exceeding $1.8 billion, has
distributed more than $350 million in support of Presbyterian mission and
ministries.

	New trustees joining the board in January: 

* Tony M. Cook of Graham, Wash., a Presbyterian elder and an attorney who
serves as counsel to the Washington State Legislative Board. An elder since
1975, he is a former moderator of Olympia Presbytery.

* the Rev. Bradley C. Copeland, pastor for 22 years of Magnolia Presbyterian
Church in Riverside, Calif., and a former presbyter of the Presbytery of
Riverside, in San Bernardino, Calif.

* George Hauptfuhrer - has been an elder at First Presbyterian and Northwest
Presbyterian churches in Atlanta and has served on the Investment Committee
of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga.

* Mark S. Lu - member of San Diego Taiwanese Presbyterian Church and
participant of many churchwide events, including the Global Evangelism
Conference and the National Taiwanese Young Adults Leadership Conference.

* the Rev. Bruce Rigdon - pastor of Grosse Pointe Memorial Church in Grosse
Pointe Farms, Mich. President and professor of church history at Ecumenical
Theological Seminary in Detroit. He has extensive experience in endowment
building and capital fund campaigns.

* Robert Stevenson - past elder, deacon and church officer at Mercer Island
Presbyterian Church in Mercer Island, Wash. He holds an M.B.A. from the
University of Pennsylvania Wharton School.

* Christine Toretti - elder at Graystone Presbyterian Church in Indiana,
Pa., was moderator of the Diaconate for five years. She is president of S.W.
Jack Drilling Co., with community service extending from trusteeship at
Carlow College in Pittsburgh, Pa., to the Pittsburgh Opera board.

	The outgoing trustees are Dwight Bartlett of Annapolis, Md.; Kenneth
Bateman, Santa Fe, N.M.; Opal Smith, Richmond, Va.; Peter Glanville, Edina,
Minn.; Eugene Bay, Bryn Mawr, Pa.; and Wilton Vincenty, Mayaguez, Puerto
Rico.
 

                    Funds Finding

         Leech made a presentation on various challenges facing the
Foundation, which includes finding new ways to finance the continued
expansion of its rapidly growing development staff and identifying
additional funding opportunities to back construction of a new office for
the corporation in Jeffersonville, Ind. Trustees broke into small groups
with responses to be correlated and reported at an executive committee
meeting in January.

	"We're pretty much dependant on the stock market and fees from the stock
market," Leech said. "That income supports all of our development work. With
the stock market being down the last year or so there's no serious problem,
but I'm just saying we need to find additional ways to get funding for our
church development activities because the stock market is kind of guiding
how much money we have to spend."

	Foundation officials say the corporation has outgrown its current
headquarters in southern Indiana, across the Ohio river from the PC(USA)
national offices in Louisville. A new building is paramount to the
Foundation's continued success, according to Leech.

        "Part of the funding discussion is that in order for us to do
something with a new building we're going to have to raise some money to do
that," Leech said. "We don't have it within our current operating budget
because we essentially give everything back to the church through the
development efforts. So we don't have a big pot of cash sitting somewhere."
  
                     Foundation Notes

* Announced recently that Servjeet "Serge" Bhachu, the Foundation's acting
general counsel, who guided the Foundation through the establishment of a
trust company and the transition to mutual funds, has accepted a position as
director of support service and development with Concentra Managed Care
Inc., located near Boston, Mass. He left the PC(USA) Foundation in July. A
replacement has not been named.

	Bhachu joins former foundation President Larry Carr at Concentra, a
provider of comprehensive occupational healthcare and disability management
services to injured and disabled employees, as well as employers and
insurance carriers. In his new post, Bhachu puts aside his duties as an
attorney to become responsible for project oversight and implementation.

* Trustees during the meeting charged the Foundation's marketing committee
with examining the organization's image within the church and to "do a
better job of explaining to the church all of the things that we do," Leech
said. "The opportunities that are available for people with trusts and
annuities and so on." He said further discussion is expected during the
January executive committee meeting.

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